Herb CaenCharles DickensLibrary Journal
Chris Kilham
Karola Saekel
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The Past Tense Forms of Awake and Awaken
Awake and awaken are two distinct verbs that mean the same thing. In other words, they're synonyms, and in the present tense they each behave the way English verbs typically behave:
The cat awakes at dawn.
The cat awakens at dawn.
Things get trickier in the past tense.
Our modern verb awake is the result of the long-ago melding of two older verbs. These verbs were very similar, but one had regular past tense forms (like play: played, has played) and the other had irregular past tense forms (like take: took, has taken).
When the two verbs melded into the modern awake (which was a process over many years), things got complicated, resulting ultimately in the following grammatically permissible sentences:
The cat awaked at dawn.
The cat awoke at dawn.
The cat was awaked by the mouse at dawn.
The cat was awoken by the mouse at dawn.
Note, though, that at this point, these are the most common:
The cat awoke at dawn.
The cat was awoken by the mouse at dawn.
That's the story of awake. Fortunately awaken (which was originally one of the past tense forms of awake) is simpler. It's a regular verb, which means it has the usual past tense forms:
The cat awakened at dawn.
The cat was awakened at dawn by a mouse.
As if all this weren't complicated enough, awake is also an adjective:
Because of the cat, I too am now awake.
For a detailed discussion of the history of these words, please see the The Grammatical History of 'Awaken' / 'Awoken' / 'Awakened'.
Examples of awaken in a Sentence
Doreen St. Félix, New Yorker, 3 July 2025
What Santana has awakened from the Earth, alongside the continued popular appeal of his art, has stirred other echoes familiar to his incredible career.
—Marcus K. Dowling, The Tennessean, 2 July 2025
The synopsis: As old wounds surface and spiritual forces awaken, Loomis’s journey becomes a powerful quest for identity, belonging, and healing.
—Greg Evans, Deadline, 30 June 2025
Europeans, awakened to the danger of American inconstancy, are scrambling to spend trillions more on defense in coming years.
—Adam Rasmi, Time, 20 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for awaken
Cite this Entry
“Awaken.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/awaken. Accessed 18 Jul. 2025.
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